Intel's Ivy Bridge chips launch using '3D transistors' | Hacker News Reader

Intel's Ivy Bridge chips launch using '3D transistors'

bbc.com

39 pointspshken16 comments

It must be midnight somewhere; the embargos are expiring. Personally, the BBC is the last place I'd look for coverage of processors; you'd probably be better off waiting a few hours for AnandTech or something.

(Also, they're called FinFETs.)

No, they're called "Tri-Gate" transistors if you want to nit. FinFET is an industry term, not one Intel uses for this particular process. Both/either are examples of 3D transistor structure, so the linked article isn't wrong.

With some images of each (which I can't judge for accuracy): http://semiaccurate.com/2011/08/18/intel-moves-transistors-f...

I'll be waiting for my nano-microchip in the near future, thank you very much. Enough of this silicon-based stuff!

Silicon is here to stay for the foreseeable future, and for a very simple reason. While we have many advanced possibilities with germanium or carbon nano-tubes or other such advanced processes, silicon is still the cheapest by such a magnitude that it wins out in performance per dollar.

Blank CDs were pretty expensive at one point.

I remember (early 80's) when a box of 10 HP floppy disks was £100

I remember (mid-80s) when my extremely noisy 20MB SCSI hard drive cost me just under $1000.

I'm not saying it will always be that way, but rather there is a large gap so, barring incredible breakthroughs, silicon's got at least a decade or so left.

Why couldn't we have incredible breakthroughs tomorrow? Well, we could, but they've been working on non-silicon tech for at least thirty years now- and we are still using silicon.

Nano-what? "Microchip" isn't a material ... But silicon is, and you can have as many nano-silicon microchips you want!

> my nano-microchip

Are you quoting some really obscure science-fiction story?

BTW, wouldn't a nano-micro-something be a femto-something?

The gates on these chips are 22 nanometers. "microchips" have been measured in nanometers for a while.

Hopefully we see a new MacBook Pro release soon…

Rather Air or something to rival it. Thin, silent, energy efficient.

My bet is on the Pro and Air lines converging. There is not much reason for an optical drive anymore in the Pros and, without it, they could be thinner.

I expect the 13" MBP to vanish or be turned into an Air with a spinning metal disk and beefier battery and GPU.

I agree with you about Pro and Air convergence. With the `MacBook` gone, there is room for the line to be called just MacBook as well.

I don't think an Air should have a discrete GPU though. Ivy Bridge's IGPU is better and I'd much rather see it being able to stand alone upon that.

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